Pakistan’s Russian dilemma
IT is difficult to imagine a single small gesture reducing decades-old hostility between two archrivals. Yet, such a moment was witnessed recently when Alok Dimri, India’s national coordinator for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, visited Islamabad for a meeting. Talking to the state media, he said he was happy to be in Pakistan. It was a simple statement, but perhaps one that may ease some of the cross-border bitterness.
Mr Dimri said this while visiting the National Council of Arts in Islamabad. The heritage, art, and culture that Pakistan and India share have repeatedly fallen victim to toxic narratives designed to provoke hate. Yet the cultural link carries a powerful sense of mutual belonging. It may be premature to read too much into the Indian delegate’s visit or to view his words as evidence of a thaw after last May’s stand-off. Still, the episode offers some hope: if leaders on both sides choose to move forward, the dialogue could quickly regain momentum.
However, optimism should be tempered — as should any expectation that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Islamabad to attend the SCO summit. If he did, it would be a miracle, and the biggest surprise in decades — even bigger than Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Islamabad in 1988 to attend the Saarc summit or Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s arrival in Lahore in 1999. Both occasions had generated enormous hope for peace between the two neighbours. What actually followed is a familiar story.
Another miracle would be if Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the Islamabad SCO summit next year. Pakistan is more curious about this visit and hopes it may trigger a major shift in its geopolitics and ambitions in Central Asia, while influencing the regional discourse in ways that would irritate India.
Pakistan would be keen to enhance its defence cooperation with Russia, but particularly interested in making some progress on the much-discussed railway from Moscow to Islamabad and establishing a freight corridor using existing 7,000-kilometre-long railway networks, with Pakistan linked to Russia through Central Asia and/or Iran. Over the decades, Pakistan, the Central Asian states, and Iran have conceived many transnational projects, and each time with great enthusiasm, yet none has materialised. Afghanistan is always made to bear the burden of the blame because of its complex relationship with Pakistan.
Russia is likely to remain cautious about deepening its cooperation with Pakistan.
Is it not interesting that the conventional wars fought by India and Pakistan collectively may not have lasted for more than a few weeks, and that Pakistan fought its longest war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan? Pakistan and the Afghan mujahideen, together with the US, defeated the Russians, which was followed by the dismantling of the Soviet state. The Pakistani leadership still takes pride in that success.
Of course, times have changed, and Pakistan is looking to cultivate new economic and defence opportunities. Russia, however, is likely to remain cautious about deepening its cooperation with Pakistan. This is not because of their bitter past, from which both sides have moved on, but because of divergent regional interests, particularly over Afghanistan, and Russia’s deep and long-standing engagement with India.
Russian-Indian defence and economic cooperation is not necessarily an obstacle to developing ties with Pakistan. But it does mean that Islamabad cannot be regarded as a preferred partner in that context.
The disparity in economic relations is significant: Pakistan’s bilateral trade with Russia is less than half a billion dollars, compared with around $69bn in India-Russia trade. The gap is even more pronounced in defence cooperation.
India maintains a high level of military engagement with Russia through multiple military-technical cooperation frameworks, including joint research and development, co-development, co-production, and after-sales support. By contrast, Russia’s defence engagement with Pakistan remains selective and falls well short of a strategic military partnership.
At the same time, India’s diversification of its defence partnerships has not significantly weakened its relationship with Russia. Moscow may have reservations about some aspects of New Delhi’s growing defence ties with other countries, but there are no clear signs of a fundamental deterioration in bilateral relations.
Russia’s interest in Pakistan is, therefore, largely geopolitical — maintaining engagement with Islamabad allows Moscow to show that its international network of partnerships is broad, while also keeping channels open with Pakistan’s political and security leaders, including those who have close ties with US President Donald Trump.
Public diplomacy is a domain through which Russia keeps its support club intact and seeks to enhance it, engaging Pakistani media, academics, opinion-makers, and policymakers through exchange programmes. The SCO is another platform Russia uses more extensively than other partners for public diplomacy.
Russia and Pakistan share counterterrorism concerns, but their approaches to Afghanistan differ sharply. Russia has recognised the Taliban regime, but Pakistan is fighting a tough war against terrorism and sees Afghanistan as a source of the war.
In geo-economic terms, they have different priorities. Russia wants Afghanistan in the camp of its Central Asian allies. At the same time, Pakistan is a major partner of the US in areas where the interests of the two countries converge in Afghanistan. This irritates not only Russia but also China, which wants the US to stay out of the region in its immediate neighbourhood. The US took two decades to leave Afghanistan, and China does not want to see it coming back.
It is not surprising that Indian-Russian relations have had few hiccups over decades. At the same time, Pakistan chose the US as its strategic partner after independence. Still, their relationship has not been smooth. Pakistan’s strategic partnership with China has also been tested recently, triggered by CPEC-related disputes and internal security concerns regarding Chinese nationals in Pakistan.
Perhaps Russia is a new love interest for a segment of Pakistan’s power elite, but the two have little to share. And the last optimistic note: what if India and Pakistan decide to live in peace? What would the geopolitical impact be?
The writer is a security analyst.
Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2026
